Male nurses and female police officers

Gender-role stereotyping occurs when people link a certain occupation to a gender. It's wrong to do so, but yet almost everybody does it unknowingly. When you think of a police officer or a fire marshall, you think of a muscular man who can conquer every obstacle he stumbles upon. When you think of a nurse, you think of a kind women with a soothing voice who takes gentle care of you.

To limit the effect of stereotyping in the process of hiring someone, 'employment equity intervention' was introduced – of which the effect was studied by Oppenheimer and Wiesner. Research shows us that when employment equity intervention was brough out, men were preferred for 'female jobs' (like nursing) and women were chosen for the 'male jobs' (police officer). However, women chose a female candidate for both jobs.

These results might tell us that gender-role stereotyping is much more common among women than among men. It might also suggest that we are more focused on fighting women stereotyping than general gender stereotyping.

Mike De Ridder

source: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k5r501005g564434/fulltext.pdf   (article from Minerva)